Orchestral delight for county audience

Concord College

Bob Dargan

Coming to the end of another enthralling series of classical concerts, Shropshire Music Trust excelled themselves at Concord College with the Carducci String Quartet’s presentation of “Beethoven’s Letters”.

In one cracking performance they, along with narrator, Crawford Logan, brought together a fresh perspective of Beethoven’s life and troubles in a flowing combination of beautifully played excerpts of Beethoven’s string quartets interspersed with letters written throughout his life.

The seven movements included from early works such as the Opus 18, through his middle life with the Opus 59 and 95 followed by the later Opus 131 and 135.

The letters were used to illustrate his early precociousness, through irascible arguments with his family and friends, together with heart-rending love letters, but culminating with the breakdown in his health and eventual death. This last piece from the Opus 132 left us spellbound with the mesmerizingly melancholic playing – the sadness of a musical genius dying too early.

Reading out the letters, actually more like edicts, was actor Crawford Logan, the Shakespearian and Archers legend. He fully captured the menacing character of Beethoven – tormented in a body struggling with pain and deafness. As he glared at the audience in the Beethoven role, we all shrank down – you wouldn’t want to meet Beethoven on a dark night!

This relaxing and illuminating Sunday afternoon was the first of two breakthrough innovative events extending the classical into ‘other worlds’: this first into words and drama to illuminate the composer’s life and work, and the exciting Kosmos Ensemble at the same venue on May 27, redefining the ‘classical’ within world music of all types – and is another successful ‘first’ in approach by the imaginative Shropshire Music Trust which is clearly attracting ever wider audiences.